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to be honest, in the recent months, the rundstroms have almost slipped his mind. almost. it's difficult to completely forget, after all, when they're the reason why a favour to a mafia lord hangs over his head. [break][break]

( which, actually, has yet to be collected; oscar's taking his time, which makes him nervous. )[break][break]

right now, though, the rundstroms and oscar martelli are as far from his mind as they can be. maddox is concentrating — he has almost agitated the scar beneath his ring into redness again with all the restless spinning he's doing to it, but he's far too engrossed in thought to notice. it's the way he learns: single-minded, all-consuming, devoured by the challenge before him.[break][break]

to his understanding, the thing with abjuration is that it is often dependent on breaking magic back into its base components. and that's difficult from any standard perspective, but maddox has never been able to conjure up anything tangible with his magic — he needs to learn to break something he has never summoned, which is to say, he has to learn entirely from the ground up, with spells like these.[break][break]

it practically drives him insane each time. he'll lose sleep over this until he gets it right, he knows. lyra says it's a madness, but she says it with amusement in her voice, and she spends the sleepless nights without a single complaint every time.[break][break]

even now, perched on the back of a nearby chair to allow him enough casting space, her gaze is intent, silent in her concentration. [break][break]

his focus narrows to a point. he can feel the strands of mana, silvery strands curled like wire around his fingers, buzzing with energy. condensation, zeke says, and maddox conjures up every memory of their previous training sessions as well and thinks, control. precision.[break][break]

the spell swells; the silver sharpens; it feels like he's balancing a knife in his palm.[break][break]

"your friend still coming by?"[break][break]

the spell snaps. maddox yelps, a little startled — it stings where it had backfired, inwards towards its caster, as his spells are wont to do. ( it's a pattern, really, partly out of habit and partly intentional; he doesn't want to cause a mess. )[break][break]

it's drawn a small, narrow line of red across the back of his hand. he's lifted his knuckle to his mouth, a little embarrassed at how quickly his concentration had been broken as he mumbles, a little muffled, "i think so?"[break][break]

then, a blink as zeke's words register. he straightens up, his hand dropping back to his side. "i mean, yeah, she should be? i texted her earlier, though—"[break][break]

a small pause; a tilt of the head. "—i haven't really seen her around too much, so i figured she's been busy with stuff. has she been to the bar recently?"

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of all the lessons maddox has learned, this is one that he has never mastered: the line on the back of his hand will simply join a collection of others, healed over two shades paler than his skin, all from varying sources — a reckless fight, his own misfired spells, lyra.[break][break]

"you alright?"[break][break]

he hums. "yup." the cut isn't deep; the spell had hardly taken shape, after all. he's had worse happen anyway — he thinks briefly of the way lyra had collapsed in the wilderness, then in the haunted house — so this, at least, is easily dealt with. he catches the gauze easily.[break][break]

"huh. guess she's been busy—" there is no further question there. why would he? he trusts queenie's skill, and though he's somewhat dubious of her judgement sometimes, that's what hydra is here for, isn't it? you receive instructions, you do what is expected of you, and you don't get into trouble.[break][break]

"—i know she was talking about... something to do with jadeflower's anniversary?" he talks as he makes quick work of tending to the cut, ever so slightly distracted as he tries to recall their last conversation, but he snaps back to attention as soon as zeke looks back.[break][break]

lyra croons a rasping, rumbling note, somewhere between amusement and anticipation.[break][break]

the TORTOISE SHELL CRACKER whips through the air. the first one, maddox commits to memory — the thrum in the air right beyond the projectile, the way the world warps when you try to peer through the spell, the crack of it hitting the metal box.[break][break]

aer's a difficult element to work with. it's fast. between one breath and the next, maddox calls for a ZORAN augment; he needs to be able to keep up, after all.[break][break]

so, the second time, he's ready. it's a tricky spell for him, because it needs him to reach out — easy enough for basic augments, or ironically, easier when altering the flow of environmental mana with abjuration. this one requires precision.[break][break]

the SPELLCASTING AUGETE snaps into place — he hears, rather than sees, the sound of the second spell hitting the box. shit. the spell took hold, certainly, but he should have watched closer, shouldn't he? did he overextend? did he not do enough?[break][break]

his gaze darts to zeke's, earnest, slightly anxious. "well, nothing blew up this time?" did it work properly?

[break]

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it is worth noting that maddox ruchbah is crafted by the lyremaker himself. he had become a knife before he had become a boy, before he had become a witch of hydra, and he expects no further assurance beyond that fact. no protection, no promise. nothing but the solace of a warmly-lit room and a voice he recognises, a voice that says jump and sounds like it smiles when maddox says, how high?[break][break]

he expects nothing more but the turn of a new day, an uneventful sunrise, a red-drowned morning that says, hello, this is your future, please clean up the blood and sharpen your blades for the day ahead.[break][break]

but that is not to say he does not want more. zeke is a kind teacher — perhaps the kindest teacher he's ever had, between a bloodied history, the unforgiving scrape of gravel against skin in the countless brawls that have taught maddox how to fight, and a father who means well, but believes that broken bones are the quickest way for an augmentor to hone their command over their body.[break][break]

( and, perhaps, this is the problem in the end — that a weapon struggles to understand any tongue not bathed in blood. )[break][break]

still, he's grinning. the praise — two words is all it takes — suffuses him with a boyish excitement as he readies the augment again, sparing only the briefest of glimpses at the damage the spell accomplished.[break][break]

"it's their fiftieth— nah, fortieth anniversary i think?"[break][break]

now that he's gotten it once, it's a little easier to set up. he has the picture in mind, recognises the flare of mana in the back of his mind as a sign of an augment finding its mark, reaches for the spellsinger's mana more easily. though not that the latter is ever particularly difficult to find, he's found out.[break][break]

"mr. h does something about auctions, if i remember right? not really my scene, but—" he's not particularly pressed about talking where he ought to be focusing. he can multitask, after all, and he has always been raised to consider utility over form — a fight is as chaotic as can be, and if he can't have a chat while casting a spell, what use is he going to be when he's trying to dodge fireballs left and right?[break][break]

"—she also said something about, like, retrieving enchanted materials from the wilderness, which is way more interesting—"[break][break]

a pause. did he just hear the door? his gaze darts to zeke, a silent question over the edge of another half-formed spell: do i keep going?[break][break]

"—i think that's her now?"

[nospaces]

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if maddox had more questions about jadeflower's anniversary, he doesn't voice them. there's only a hum, noting down that curious tidbit of information.[break][break]

( pity. i wouldn't have minded a hike. [break][break]

you weren't even invited… ) [break][break]

when his attention shifts, it does so wholeheartedly — his voice remains light, and there's a habitual curl of his lips that hints at a perpetual, good-natured smile, but there's something different about his gaze: a little more focused, a little sharper, a little more hungry.[break][break]

by the time zeke tucks the note into his pocket, maddox has an elbow on the counter and his chin resting on the upturned heel of his palm, waiting for a story.[break][break]

"…to hydra's intelligence…"[break][break]

lyra huffs. he's drawing it out.[break][break]

"...the on-going successor of operation juliette."[break][break]

maddox blinks.[break][break]

there is no mistaking the recognition that flickers across his features. how could he not? distractedly, he remembers a history lesson with aeris, and his father had gone off on a tangent, lost in a memory, saying, y'know, the first gun i ever made— i wanted to call it juliet, as a joke, really.[break][break]

i didn't, though. a laugh, a wince. don't need more reminders.[break][break]

before he can catch himself, maddox has already straightened up ever so slightly, asking curiously, "on-going since the…seventies?" [break][break]

he wants to get this right. time is muddy, especially around the war. the information he gleans from others are nebulous but personal, more story than history, and he knows better than to blindly trust the bulk of the history books published on the matter.[break][break]

another memory scratches at the back of his head. fractions of them, really — glimpses of his parents' paranoia, always looking over their shoulders, always moving between the two cities.[break][break]

"is it like a—" a wrinkle of the nose, like he's not sure it's the right word to use. he's thinking along the lines of hunting dogs and execution squads and the way aeris' expression always twists when he sees the glimmer of a reserve badge along the docks. "—bounty for the snakes, then?"[break][break]

he thinks, a little guiltily, a little absently, of kasimir.

[nospaces]